Peek At Our Week 2

       Week 2 done! It was a full week too with my boy starting his first job!!! YAY FOX!!!! I am so proud of him. I think just about everyone starts their first job at a fast food place! 

        I thought I would use this weeks post to go over what the kids will be doing for school or at least starting out because as they finish stuff things always change. Fox will be reading the entire series of the Uncle Eric books to learn about economics as well as the many many Izzit movies we own. He is going to study American Geography as well as Government. He is using Fox it Grammer by IEW. He is going through Math Refresher For adults just to see any spots he may need help on. He will also keep track of everything in his Thinking Tree Journal. 

       For science he will study scientist from the begininng and do experiments and projects based on their findings. We are reading Suffering Scientist by Horrible Science and using his Milestones in Science kit that he had never finished before because he had wanted to learn something else! I will say that has been a huge joy in home school, my kids having a say in their education and enjoying what they are learning about. 

Peek At Our Week 2

       Week 2 was a bit more work to get used too. Nothing too bad though, don't want to overwhelm the poor kiddos! Skyler is not hating Cover Story Writing. I don't think she has yet to figure out how she feels about it, but she doesn't hate it. I will mark that as a win for now! I personally like it and think it is a really neat way to get kids writing and being creative. Hopefully she won't start to hate it as time moves on through the school year. 

Peek At Our Week 2

     Week 2 is done!!! It was a full week too at that! It seems like it is always a full week since the whole FUN-SCHOOLING thing started. Fun-school is a term coined by Sarah Janisse Brown the Thinking Tree author who I truly adore. It can look a bit different for every family and this is a week in the life of my kiddos. What does fun-school look like for my kids? Well we do nature science every week. Why? Because the girls love it. They love that time going outside looking at trees. leaves, clouds, bugs and whatever else they come up with. They really like coloring outside as well. 

     By the time they come in they are pretty relaxed and cheerful and ready to move on to whatever it is that comes next. Even at 12 and 13 they still need to get the wiggles out so to speak. Yes my kids have a say in what they learn to a big degree, yes they have a say on where they do school as well. They may start at the table and end up on the floor! I have been asked before how do you ever expect your kids to know how to act in public and I can honestly say I have never had an issue. My children are kind, loving, respectful and helpful. 

     

A Peek At Our Week 2!!!!

What I don't get is that the start of the week is always pretty well clean, then something happens! My children call these some ones I don't know, somebody and not me.

I found these cool little cards and I am having them pull one each day to add in their journals. Review never hurts!!

Skyler is finishing up the cat anatomy book she had picked for her kitty doodle journal.

She is moving on to Professor Astros Atomic Adventure for a science book. Catopia was a book that was way too fun not to have her read with the Kitty journal!!

Fox is still working away with his roller coaster. He has made it clear he hates paper models and never ever wants to do another!!

Damian is still using Kahn Academy and doing well!!

Skyler is moving on with Multiplication Games by Thinking Tree. She enjoys the coloring and little games.

In more news Skyler is now volunteering at the library!!! She will help with kids programs, shelve books and work on speaking skills. I am hoping she does OK with the speaking part!!

Damian made marshmallows in his science. I stood back let him do it all, yes this was hard!! I am one of those just let me do it get it done kind of people so standing back is super hard!

This was a fun picture to catch. Basically the day Fox was born was saying, "Hello Water meet Oil" and expecting them to get along! These pictures are rare now that they are older so I truly treasure the moments I manage to catch with the two of them.

Not entirely sure what happened but they didn't seem to come out the way the directions said they would. They were extremely sticky and almost impossible to cut into squares. They also had a clearish liquid type layer all on the bottom.

I got a few more good pictures this week. All in all was a decent week. Damian is getting a hang of having it all planned and doing it on his own pretty well. So far so good!

Second Semester Week 2, Peek At Our Week

All in all a full week! We did school, had pottery, went on a fieldtrip and a Dr. Seuss birthday party!!

So I can see some good things so far with the Thinking Tree Journals. They have caused the kids to get into stuff they normally wouldn't. They have to pick out videos and articles, basically stuff we didn't get to all the time. I would have to say Skyler is doing the best with them. She also LOVES LOVES LOVES Dyslexia games. She would do it all day long if possible! I have noticed whenever she has to pick a movie it is almost always a Magic School Bus. I have had to tell her she has to stray from her favorites and pick some different ones though. Fox of course is still picking anything history and right now has decided to work his way through The Horrible Histories cartoons!

What was really awesome is after the movie she decided to reuse some milk jugs as water sprinklers for her flowers.  She popped holes in the lids so the water would sprinkle out! Good Job Skyler!!!

Can I just do this all day long mom???? I hear this often with her.

I do feel her handwriting is already showing improvements.

Here is a nice view of all three working and being quiet!! This is not an often thing so I wanted a memory LOL!!!

Here is Skyler with the cat!!!! I love library programs!!!

In pottery this week Skyler is being taught about using molds and liquid clay. They are making eggs for the baskets they are working on. This is most likely the biggest project she has done and I am pretty excited she is moving on to bigger cooler things!!! I will also say her teacher is the coolest!!!

Now for our fieldtrip to Mosh in Jacksonville. I will say that Indianapolis Childrens Museum has spoiled me towards any other kids museum. I will also say this was small in my opinion but the things in it were VERY cool. I am in love with the da Vinci reproductions. They were completely amazing!!! I had to watch very careful but every time Damian didn't realize anyone was watching he actually participated and seemed to enjoy himself. I even suckered him into a few posed pics!! My boys say they are just too old for pictures!!!

There is just so much to see at the museum I cannot possibly put all the pictures up!  It was a fun day!

Would not have wanted to meet that shark!!!!

Like I said TONS more pics, these were just my favorites!!

Linking up with Homeschooling 6 Thinking Tree posts!!!

MAM Monday!!

     A peek at our MAM Mondays! Math, art and music!!! On Mondays we do our art projects, learn about music and composers as well as play math games. Unfortunately today we had appts. only music and art were done. The kids were so sad! (sarcasm drip drip) We are continuing with our Van Gogh art study using See The Light Sunflowers as well as the Homeschool In The Woods artists activity packs. We are also using Homeschool In The Woods Composer activity pack to learn about composers. We finished our book The Magic Of Music today as well. We are really enjoying all the things we have been using and I cannot wait to see the finished products of all of it!!

     So of course I have plenty of pictures!!

Here they are cutting out the composer cards for their study. It was A LOT of cutting and this time I made them do it their selves. I usually do it for them but today I just wasn't in the mood! Cutting skills are important anyway!

Apparently, Stella Luna (kitten) enjoys cutting skills as well!! Doesn't everyone have a cat to do school with?

Here are some pictures of them during art time. The Sunflowers project is four lessons and they are on lesson 3. I think they are coming along very nicely and I am surprised at the effort the kids have put forth. It helped when I mentioned Aunt Linda wanted them to do it!!

You have to excuse my son, he is going through the I don't have to wear a shirt phase.

Again this is lesson 3 and so far I am very proud!!!!

Week 2

Our week started off with a hot breakfast! This is something I am just not good at because let's face it I don't wanna get up and cook.

Then my big kids waved goodbye as they went on to high school! This year I have an 11th grader and a brand new 9th grader!!!

YAY DEVLIN!!!!

YAY DAMIAN!

There he goes off to face the world!
 For sign language they learned the leter c and the phrase how are you?  In science we started to learn about bones. Again this was a review for them as they have studied bones before.  

 Skyler with the hinge joint

 

 Fox playing with a ball and socket model

 

After a hard morning of lessons we decided to have a little snack to cool off, ice cream sandwiches, YUM!

 

Skyler then decided to take her reading to a more comfy spot because it is too hot to sit in a chair she told me.

After lunch they burned off having too much energy playing outside.

Tuesday continued well and this momma is thrilled! We started using xtra math again, I think summer made them rusty! Fox shocked me with his Winning With Writing lesson today. Instead of the same junky stuff he always comes up with he actually tried, I was so excited. He chose insects as his topic and even did research using some insect flash cards we have. He used scrap paper to have me correct then wrote the final draft in his book. Writing is something he HATES! I was so thrilled with his effort.

 

Skyler took her beta level lesson 21 test today and passed! Math is so not her strong point. She tries though so hard.

We are still going on with Spell By Color and the kids are doing well with it so far.

In history we worked on our Medieval Times newspaper from Homeschool in the Woods Middle Ages project pack.

Well that was our day and sadly I forgot art :(

On Wednesday Fox took his Delta level lesson 8 test and passed! His math is so catching up the past two years. I love Math U See!

Today was a day for the cat though! He just would not leave us alone.

Trying to take pencils, jumping up to lay right in their books all day long. He wanted to do school too I guess.

Thursday and Friday all blend together since the addition of the new baby!

He will be staying with us just for a little while until he is ready to go face the world! Mainly my yard full of trees and other squirrels. He was found in another town all alone in a parking lot.

We did an experiment in science from the Blood and Guts book, the thumbless survivor test.

She tried so hard to write! They decided their thumbs were very helpful.

I guess learning about bones was so fun even Donatello wanted in on the action.

My house is full of kids and animals. I can't pass up a helpless little thing for nothing. All in all it was a good second week and I hope it just gets better!